Title plan - any potential problems with "Communal Vehicular Access"?

grumbler

• The green areas are owned by the neighbours but are part of the "Communal Vehicular Access".
  
• The yellow area is owned by the property but is part of the "Communal Vehicular Access".
• Any costs associated to repairs/maintenance required to the yellow and green areas are to be shared by the 4 houses.  On the plans each house owns a marked up 25% of the common drive, however if any work is required the costs are split between the 4 properties. Despite the marked-up owner ship areas there is no option to deny access across each persons "owned" area.

(blue and similar are garages and parking spaces).

I do realize that 'owning' a part of "Communal Vehicular Access" means nothing except potential costs of maintenance, but is it this the only problem?

getmore4less

I would be more concerned about tandem parking  way from the actual house

Where are the visitor spaces?

74jax

What are you all 'accessing' by using this vehicular access? 
Can you park on the access, is it to be kept clear? If you can park on it, how does 761 exit, if 762 is occupied? 
Can anything use this access, heavy vehicles causing movement and damage. 
Who determines the maintenance costs, what if one is thousands less than the other quote but 3 properties want that and 1 property can't afford it? 

grumbler

getmore4less said:

I would be more concerned about tandem parking  way from the actual house

Where are the visitor spaces?

 In fact, it's a garage and a parking space in front of it. Both private. We have only one car, visitors can park on the main street in front of the hose or, possibly, on the "Communal Vehicular Access" on the side - it's wide enough and the grass strip is private.

74jax said:

What are you all 'accessing' by using this vehicular access? 

The garage and the parking space

Can you park on the access, is it to be kept clear?

This I don't know yet, but I don't really need to park there.

Can anything use this access, heavy vehicles causing movement and damage.

I think, theoretically, yes, but there is no anything to access - just four garages and four parking spaces.

Who determines the maintenance costs, what if one is thousands less than the other quote but 3 properties want that and 1 property can't afford it?

I don't know, but this is the last of my worries.

ProDave

This looks perfectly normal for a new estate.  You each have a garage and a parking space in front of it for your exclusive use and the REST is jointly owned, you own a quarter of it each, and maintenance has to be shared between the 4 of you.  You must not block the access it must remain free for anyone to drive in and out of their spaces at any time.

Bendy_House

Hi Grumb.

Almost certainly as ProDave says.

This is very common - any wee shared access drive to more than one house will likely have such an arrangement - each house owns the bit of shared drive immediately outside their frontage, but the actual 'rights' are shared; ie right to pass freely across it, shared maintenance, and also the restrictions such as 'don't park there'.

I suspect you'll find that the overall maintenance is shared by the 4 properties who have garages and parking spaces behind there. I also suspect that the rights and limitations are pretty much identical for all. And i suspect that includes 'to keep the access free from restrictions' or summat.

Issues arise when one person thinks they have more rights than this... I can see 763 stopping outside their door to unload shopping, for instance, but that shouldn't be a problem provided that's all they do. If visitors start to park there, tho', even if they bemoan "Give us a break - I'll only be 20 minutes!" (always a bad sign if they try and suggest you are being the unreasonable one..), then expect to have to become involved. And the best way to do this is 'very nicely', but by also getting the three others to back to up - three nice messages ought to do it.

It's a very common and typical setup, tho', and only becomes a problem if one of the entitled feels more entitled than the rest.

eddddy

grumbler said:

I don't know, but this is the last of my worries.

I think you should at least give some consideration to that type of thing.

For example...

• If a huge pothole develops just in front of your parking spaces making access to your parking spaces difficult (so you're the only one inconvenienced) - on the piece of drive owned by your neighbour. Do the deeds say that the neighbour is required to repair it or can they just leave it? How do you enforce it, if they won't?

• If a neighbour owns a tarmac firm and decides to frequently resurface their piece of drive - and charges £100k each time, so expects the neighbours to pay £25k each time. Do the deeds provide any protection against that?

• If you repair your piece of drive, and ask the neighbours to contribute their 25% - but they refuse (and/or they dispute that the repairs were required) presumably you'd have to take them to court.

It's good to know how much 'protection' the deeds give you, should those types of situations arise.




Edit to add...

Referring to the first bullet point above... it seems strange that '763' is responsible for maintaining a piece of drive that they hardly drive over.

If that piece of drive sinks, develops potholes, has huge deep puddles, it won't inconvenience the owner of '763', so they might have limited motivation to repair it.

getmore4less

Are people parking on that shared space check evening weekends etc

I can see people stopping to unload shopping.

Where do the bins go bin day...